Conservative crank Ann Coulter has made a career out of bad manners, so it was no surprise when she slammed her libertarian hosts at the annual International Students for Liberty confab in February as “pussies.” That was almost a compliment, compared to “drunks” and “horny hicks,” two other terms Coulter has used to describe her political opponents.

A student raised Coulter’s ire by questioning her hawkish drug war stance: “How is it your business what I choose to put in my body?”

“It is my business when we are living in a welfare state,” Coulter responded. “Right now, I have to pay for…your health care. I have to pay your unemployment.…I have to pay for your food, for your housing.…Get rid of the welfare state, then we’ll talk about drug legalization.”

One doesn’t have to choose between the drug war and the welfare state. But if one must, the drug war is worse. The welfare state confiscates one individual’s wealth to give to another. That’s unfair. But putting people behind bars for smoking a joint that is less harmful than the alcohol and tobacco that Coulter pumps into her body is a travesty.

Read The Full Story

Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz just announced that it lead $60 million investment round in a startup called Lyft.

Lyft is a car-sharing/semi-pro taxi service.

How it works: You open an app on your smartphone to summon a driver to take you somewhere. A car with a big, fuzzy pink mustache affixed to its front arrives to pick you up. The person who picks you up is not a professional driver, but another Lyft user.

Lyft, which is only a year old, plans to use the $60 million to expand beyond its current markets.

The funding enters Lyft into more serious competition with Uber and GroundLink, another two startups with apps people can use to summon taxi rides. Uber has raised the most capital of the three, and has the lead in terms of adoption.

Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss, who is leading the deal for his firm, wrote a blog post about it.  Read The Full Story

HOST: In presenting Murray to you, he's a teacher, a scholar, a writer, a professor, editor of Libertarian Forum. About his many books, let me give one title, the latest, I believe, The Ethics of Liberty. I think that will do for this audience.

It's a pleasure for me to call on Dr. Murray N. Rothbard to deliver the keynote address of the first World Libertarian Convention in Zurich, '82.

OK, Murray?

(Applause)

ROTHBARD: See, one prophecy turned out to be incorrect. I'm here, not in my birthday suit, but everything was fixed up by the authorities, the hotel, whatever.

Well, it's a great pleasure and privilege to be here. And it's a really great honor to deliver the keynote address to the first World Libertarian International. In my own irreverent terms, I could call it the Libertern, but I think I won't do that.

(Laughter)

The first problem I was confronted with in giving a keynote to this group is, how can I speak trans-culturally. I don't know how many nations are represented here, but quite a large number. And how can I speak to people, each one of whom has a different culture, a different national history, a different history of the movement? And how can I meaningfully talk to trans-national or trans-cultural Libertarians?  Read The Full Story